


The Pitch

by EldritchMage



Series: Logan and Rachel Osaka [5]
Category: Wolverine and the X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchMage/pseuds/EldritchMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hi, all. Welcome to Part 5 of my Logan/Rachel Osaka saga. Hope you enjoy it.</p><p>Logan's got a line on a job, but he's got a queasy feeling about it. An empath would be a real asset to find out what's what. So Logan pitches the job to Rachel, and off they go to one of the more unpleasant countries in the world. Five-inch long cockroaches aren't the only vermin they're likely to find.</p><p>This one's a straight action adventure, though Logan likes to think he sounds like a shamus from a film noir.</p><p>As usual, please leave me a comment if you want to let me know how you like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pitch

By the time I got into LaGuardia, it was after eight. I’d been crammed in a plane for 18 hours and I was tired, hungry, cranky, sick of my own stench, and in no mood for a hassle with Customs. I don’t know whether it was better for me or the kid wearing the uniform that I didn’t get a hassle – it took him just a couple seconds to paw through my duffel, and a couple more to scan my passport with all the stuff on it that meant he needed to leave me alone as a matter of Canadian national security. He gave me a good stare when he saw what his X-ray machine told him about my metal-clad skeleton, but he kept his lips buttoned. I hefted my duffel and left the border boy scouts behind.

Outside the terminal, the air was hot, sticky, and full of pending rain. With my luck, the wet stuff would hold off just long enough for me to get my Harley out of the car park, then I’d get to add a good soaking to my stench and ill temper.

Welcome to another grimy evening in the life of Wolverine.

Maybe it wouldn’t stay grimy. I lit a cigar and headed past the taxi stand for an empty stretch of the sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone.

She answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

My life just improved 100%. “Hiya, darlin’.”

“Logan! How are you?”

“Just got into LaGuardia. I’m filthy rank and hungry, but I wanna see you. Business as well as pleasure. You busy?”

“I’ll fire up the grill. Get here when you can. There’s a big traffic jam between here and there.”

“Thanks for the heads up. See you soon.”

I finished my cigar and headed for the car park. As I’d expected, the rain started just as I paid the parking fee. The ride through town was as big a pain as Rachel had warned me it’d be, and the torrential deluge didn’t improve my temper, either. An hour after I’d called, I angled my bike behind Rachel’s Jaguar. It was good to climb off the bike, get out of my jacket, and shake the worse of the water out of my hair before I headed for the lobby of Rachel’s condo building. Rachel had left word that I was coming, so the night clerk only eyed me disapprovingly. Guess he didn’t think much of a class act like Rachel slumming with a bum like me. I kept my good fortune to myself as I got into the elevator and headed up to the twelfth floor.

I knocked. The door opened. Rachel pulled me inside and into a kiss before the door shut.

“You always greet the lowlifes who knock on your door like this?” I teased as I dropped my jacket and duffel to match her kiss with my own.

“Just the ones with claws.” She let me go long enough to look me up and down. “You _are_ rank, Logan. And wet.”

“Been a long couple of days.”

“Soap and hot water are down the hall. Or do you need to eat first?”

“I’ll go for the soap and hot water first. Don’t want to foul your place any more’n I have to.”

“I appreciate that,” she said with humor, and led me down the hall to the bathroom. “Help yourself. I’ll work on dinner.”

She let me go, only her touch on my hand lingering. Now it was my turn to look her up and down. She wore a jade green silk kimono patterned with pale pink cherry blossoms that suited her in a lot of ways. I arched an eyebrow.

“Finally found somethin’ to wear that isn’t black, eh?”

She smiled. “Every now and then I dress like a girl.”

I considered. “Better not do it too often. It’s real distractin’.”

Her smile widened ever so slightly, promising more than hot water and a meal. “So go wash.”

“I’ll do that. Won’t take long, if that’s what’s waitin’ for me.”

She laughed and left for the kitchen. I shut myself in the bathroom and took advantage of my toothbrush, the steam shower, and a lot of expensive French-milled soap.

Near the end of my shower, the bathroom door opened and Rachel let herself in. She took her time untying her obi, teasing me until she finally let the silk kimono slip off her shoulders and onto the floor. She wore nothing underneath, giving me something to savor as she joined me in the shower.

“Turn around,” she directed as she soaped a sponge and started scrubbing my back in long firm strokes. It felt wonderful.

“I like the view in front better,” I mock growled, trying not to purr like some overgrown housecat. All on their own, my muscles eased under Rachel’s attentions.

“You can wait,” she murmured in my ear as she scrubbed.

“You couldn’t.”

“I didn’t think you’d complain.”

Rachel finished my back and I turned around to savor the sight and touch of her water-slicked skin. “You might get more of a payback than soap and water.”

“I certainly hope so. It’s been a month since I’ve seen you.”

“Duty called.” I took the soapy sponge from her. The look on her face… not that I needed any more encouragement… I pulled her into my arms and gave her everything she asked for.

“I thought you were hungry,” she whispered when we found time to talk again.

“I was. So were you. Need more before dinner?”

“Don’t you need to fuel the machine?”

“Little thing about hunger, darlin’. Does a number on my sex drive. As hungry as I am right now… if you need more, I’m your man.”

She giggled. “One of the many things I love about you, Logan. You’re so willing to sacrifice for me.”

“For you, any time.”

She sighed and stroked my face. She tugged the long hair of my sideburns gently, wound her hands in the hair at the back of my neck, and more than half considered my offer. “Let’s eat, then see what other trouble we can get into.”

Her smile was less challenge than anticipation, so I helped her off the shower floor. In a few minutes we were dry and more or less dressed, Rachel in her green kimono, me in the black one she kept for me. Rachel soon put a rare steak and steamed vegetables in front of me. She’d eaten earlier, but she kept me company with some fruit and a glass of merlot. I made short work of Rachel’s offering and we retreated to her cushy sofa. It was big, curved, modular thing with room for us to entwine comfortably. I sank into it gratefully with a beer. Rachel curled next to me to finish the last of her wine.

“Better.” I exhaled, savoring the chance to let down. “Satch was right, darlin’. You’re an angel to take care of riffraff like me.”

She smiled as she sipped her wine. “I take care of the samurai of House Osaka, who also happens to be my teacher, my friend, and my lover. Hardly riffraff.”

“Stokin’ my ego can be dangerous to your sleep.”

She considered her wine and looked askance at me with decidedly unangelic intensity. “My evil plan proceeds apace.”

I grinned. “Good comeback. I like you better with black wings than white ones.”

“I thought so. So you said you had business reasons to stop by as well as personal ones?”

“Later,” I murmured, nuzzling her hair. “I got a few more personal ones to cover first.”

It took until next morning after breakfast to get past enough of those personal reasons that I thought about anything else. We were back on the sofa, lazing in the sun and basking in the afterglow of good food, good sex, each other’s presence after a long month apart. I savored my third cup of coffee and stroked Rachel’s hair as she lay with her head in my lap. Her eyes were closed and she looked asleep, but her pulse and her breathing told me she was just very relaxed. I thought about what it would be like to savor this all of the time, but shut that away. We both had reasons why that was hard, and now wasn’t the time to get into them –

“So tell me the business reasons, then.” Rachel murmured.

I smirked. “Havin’ an empath –”

“Is something you don’t do nearly often enough,” Rachel supplied with an impish smile. “And having a samurai equipped with your nervous system is something I don’t do nearly often enough. It’s a joy to seduce someone so easily, and I like it.”

“You talkin’ about me or yourself, darlin’?” I shot back, and reached out a hand to touch her. But Rachel’s mutant talents saw my hand move before it moved, and she intercepted it with her own. She opened her eyes, climbed into my lap, and eased against me.

“Does it matter?”

I shook my head and kissed her until her body melted into mine. I laid her head on my shoulder and rubbed her back slowly. “It’s all good, darlin’. Can’t say how much.”

Rachel nestled against me with a sigh. I swallowed the last of my coffee, and settled into the sofa and my woman’s embrace.

“I was in Thailand the past two days. Potential job. Not much to say about it on the surface. But there are layers to this one, which brought you to mind. An empath would be real useful on this run.”

“What’s the job?”

“Surface layer – some American film actress hired a firm to pick up her latest adopted child, an infant. The kid’s in Burkan – little dinky place on the coast between Myanmar and Thailand, which ain’t a nice place. Woman’s already done the grunt work – paper trail, background checks, personal visits, the usual shit. All that’s left is the actual pickup. She’s rich and white, the kid’s orphaned and Asian, and some people don’t like the mix. The natives at the top of the pile don’t like the idea of the world thinkin’ they have to sell their kids to the hated enemy because they can’t take care of ‘em at home. The States don’t like the actress goin’ around diplomatic channels to adopt the kid. So it’s no surprise that the actress has received threats to both her life and the kid’s, so she doesn’t want to pick the kid up herself because it’d attract too much attention. The firm she hired called me for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I’m Canadian, not American. They want me to make the pickup, get the kid into this country, and deliver it to the firm to take to the actress. The goal is to keep everything under the radar.”

“Okay,” Rachel nodded. “So what’s underneath the surface layer?”

“Maybe nothin’. I just have a feelin’. Might be someone’s usin’ the story about that actress adoptin’ a kid to screen a kidnappin’.”

“Meaning… the secrecy isn’t to avoid a threat to the child, but to avoid detection when the child is stolen?”

“You got it. Burkan ain’t the most stable place on the planet. Two families run the place, and they’ve played nasty with each other before. Both of ‘em have small kids. I wouldn’t put it past either side to pull a stunt like kidnappin’ a baby. Think of the leverage the kidnappers would have – the kid’s too small to need guards or imprisonment and can’t try to escape or cause public scenes, so their overhead’s low. On the victim’s side, they value their kids so much that they’d do anything to get the kid back unharmed, like give up power, or halt the resistance.”

“The latter’s true only if the child is a boy,” Rachel amended with a sigh. “Is it?”

“Yup.”

Rachel nodded. “So how can I help?”

“I figure all you have to do is walk in the room to get a read on the truth. If the deal’s legit, we take the kid and head home. If not, we get the kid back to his parents.”

Rachel rubbed my thigh. “And how are you going to explain why I have to walk into that room?”

Now I grinned. “This is a seamy part of Asia, darlin’. Most of Burkan’s tourist money comes from the sex trade. You’re a good actress. You could play a bratty teenaged prostitute I fished out of a gutter to wrangle the kid.”

Rachel grinned back. “I imagine that I can play a guttersnipe well enough to make you wince. But I can’t imagine that the Wolverine would settle for such lousy backup on a job, nor can I imagine that my lover would cast me in the light of something he’d share with anyone else.”

I laughed. “Got a big opinion of yourself, doncha?”

“I’m an empath, Logan. I know how you feel about me.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve got the bratty part down. Why waste such a sterlin’ beginnin’?”

She poked me in the ribs. “Okay, you’ve had fun pulling my chain. So what’re you really thinking?”

I blocked her hand with my elbow before she triggered my ticklish rib again. “About as opposite a guttersnipe as you can get. Ever see the guys who shadow heads of state? The ones in the pricey suits and dark glasses who can make a mess of anybody who makes the wrong move?”

Rachel laughed. “From the ridiculous to the sublime. Give me your hand.”

I did so without hesitation, and Rachel’s jade green eyes glowed bright gold as she actively engaged her talents.

“Think about the people you’ve dealt with so far. Think about what you felt about them.”

I considered the two men, giving my emotions to Rachel’s talents.

“Have you ever worked with these people before?”

“Nope.”

“Your emotions tell me these guys are on the seamy side. You’re expecting trouble more than not.”

“They’ve got that feel.”

“Have you ever done this kind of job before?”

“Not with kids. Lots of prisoner transfers and extractions.”

“What’s an extraction?”

“You get someone out of a situation. Might be a spy, might be a defector, might be somethin’ else. Emergency evac, or sometimes a reverse kidnappin’.”

“All usually done on the quiet, then, like you’re being asked to do here.”

I nodded.

She sat up and looked me in the eye. “Now tell me the rest. Why are you even thinking about taking this job? It’s rank.”

I exhaled and tried to sort though all the feelings that Rachel’s pointed question raised. She and I had been through some hard stuff together, and I valued her regard too much to lie to her. Not only would that offer her the utmost disrespect, it’d kill our relationship, too, because Rachel’s talents _knew_ when someone lied to her, and often why. Still, it wasn’t the easiest thing to bare myself to anyone to this extent, even to my… lover. Funny. It was hard to admit some things to myself, much less anyone else.

I gave up. “Because… sometimes I’m the samurai you think I am, and I don’t like it when somethin’ this nasty goes down.”

She nodded impassively, knowing that it’d been hard enough to say the little I did. “Okay. So why me? I’m not trained like the X-Men or the military. I don’t want Weapon X thinking I’m available for whatever jobs they come up with.”

“One – this is a freelance job, darlin’. No X-Men; no Weapon X; just me. Two – you’re an empath, and that’s what I need most. Three – you’re Asian, which is good press in a place like Burkan. Four – I’ve watched you with the kids at the institute. You’re good. Havin’ you along to look after the kid means the kid stays safe and I can keep both eyes on logistics. Five – you’re good in a fight, and if it comes to that, I want every bit of talent on my side that I can find.”

“And what’s Number Six?”

I smirked a concession. “Your talents are getting’ way too good, kid. There’s still a chance that this is a legit deal. I did some checkin’, and this actress really is workin’ through an adoption. If this deal is legit, you’ve got the polish to play nice with the adoption people, and again, I can keep an eye on logistics –”

Rachel laughed again. “So you’re saying that politeness counts?”

“I’m sayin’ that better I have someone be polite for me than try to be it myself. I’m just a soldier.”

“Like Ororo is just sort of lucky at guessing the weather.”

“Have it your way. Havin’ someone polished will help me close the deal. And if the deal’s not legit, then you have the chops to help me protect the kid as well as us.”

Rachel seemed mollified, so it was time to throw in all the usual disclaimers. “I expect this’ll be no big deal and take two days or less, minus the travel. But if it goes south, then it could be everythin’ that bein’ stuck in a foreign country in the middle of a bad deal could be. You’ve come a long way since Alberta, and I’d like the help. But if you’re the least bit edgy about this, no problem.”

Rachel considered. “If this goes south, as you call it, what options do we have?”

“I won’t be callin’ the X-Men, if that’s what you mean.”

She stroked my hand and looked at me straightly. “But…?”

I stared back. “Don’t ask me that, darlin’. Can’t go there.”

She held my gaze steadily, knowing my evasion for what it was. “I’ve never asked what you do with yourself when you’re not at the Institute drilling the children, Logan. My sense is that you’ve still got military contacts, and you work for someone – probably several someones – on a semi-regular basis. For better or worse, you’ve asked me to get involved. For all I know, I could end up in a hostile country with forged papers facing imprisonment or worse. So before I answer, I’d like some basic information.”

I exhaled. “Daniel tell you that?”

Daniel was Rachel’s mutant friend who communed with the cyber world the way a telepath communed with people’s thoughts. Rachel shook her head. “He didn’t have to. I figured that out for myself when I was trying to protect myself against Sabretooth.”

I thought about that. Rachel had told me a lot of what she’d dug up, but I suspected she’d been judicious in her phrasing. She’d probably run across a fair amount about me, and it couldn’t have been pretty. This job wasn’t likely to be pretty, either, and I suddenly wondered what had possessed me to ask her to help. Maybe part of me was getting tired of secrets. Maybe part of me wanted more than what I’d gotten in the past hundred years.

So what if I wanted more. There wasn’t anything noble about pulling Rachel into the world that had shafted me more times than not, just because I wanted more.

“Logan,” Rachel murmured. She’d read my emotions like an open book, and I hated being so exposed. I tensed, started to subvocalize –

“Logan.”

“What?” I growled, and not nicely.

Rachel stoked my hand again, and let it go gently. She slid out of my lap enough not to be directly in contact with me, but stayed close enough that I understood her retreat as giving me space and not a rejection. “I trust you. All you have to do is trust me. If you can’t, I understand why. History, training, national security, clearances. It’s okay.”

I took a deep breath, forced myself calm. “I won’t be callin’ the X-Men. But… I’ve got some… license for what I do. Nothin’s ever certain, but I don’t expect either of us to have any issues with a foreign government.”

She nodded, accepting my concession. I wished I hadn’t used the word license. It was too close to a whole lot of things that were better off unsaid. I wondered again how much Rachel really knew. Probably more than was safe. But I didn’t go there. Even what I’d said had been more than I should.

“I can’t predict how well I’d handle every situation,” Rachel was saying slowly. “But I don’t think you would’ve told me this much unless you thought it was something I could handle, or if you thought there was any real potential for catastrophe –”

“Right.”

“– and if the child is being taken under false pretences, then I’d like to help. When do you expect to start?”

“I got people workin’ on a Canadian passport for you – you guessed right about that. I wanna get you into the Danger Room to check out your weapons status, get you some practice if you need it. Today’s Saturday, so I’m thinkin’ we head out sometime between Monday and Wednesday, whenever I hear that the deal goes down. Should be done by next Saturday.”

Rachel got up, disappeared into her office, and returned in a minute or so with her PDA in hand. She punched buttons, checking her calendar. “I don’t have anything I can’t move this week. And I can get someone to cover the shop for those days. So I’m game.”

“You get thirty percent of what I make. And you take orders like any other grunt.”

“I don’t need the money, Logan.”

“Nope, you don’t. But you get it anyway or you don’t tag along. This is business.”

She nodded. “Let me make a few calls and move some appointments. Then I’m yours.”

I snared her before she got up. “You’re mine, anyway.”

Rachel put her hands to good use, enough to get a growl out of me. “Remember who you belong to, too.”

I let her go before she made me do more than growl, before it was any more obvious how much I liked her kind of insubordination.

 

* * *

 

It took only a few minutes for Rachel to clear her calendar, and we headed out shortly thereafter for the Xavier Institute. We spent a few minutes catching up with our friends, then it was down to the Danger Room. I already knew that Rachel’s parents had well prepared her in self-defense, and she was an expert in several martial arts. I also had seen firsthand how able she was with katanas, AK-74s, and trank guns. She was small and light, and didn’t have enough mass to be effective with weapons of much size. But with nunchakus, she was nasty, and no kinder with any type of staff. She was competent with an Uzi and a variety of small hand weapons, and she’d gotten back to speed in her hand-to-hand. The last thing I tested was how well she could avoid pursuit, and she was resourceful and smart about marshalling her strength. Her time-sensing talents had developed strongly and helped her avoid capture. Once she got tired, though… she wouldn’t have much chance against anyone of any size.

It was late when we headed back to her place. It was good to settle into a big dinner – we’d missed lunch – and our own pursuits.

We spent Sunday and Monday in the Danger Room running through typical scenarios we might get into, and in Rachel’s place scoping out how we wanted to play our partnership on the job. Burkan was far enough away from Japan that we decided we’d keep the chatter between us in Japanese. Ever practical, Rachel downloaded a lot of Burkani maps into her PDA. Then I apologized at length for the lack of intimacy I expected we’d endure once we headed for Burkan.

After that, we waited.

The call came at 0400 Tuesday morning. From the depths of Rachel’s antique four-poster, I floundered out of the bed linens, groped for my cell phone with one hand, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with the other.

“Yeah.”

The voice on the other end was terse, guttural. I was to pick up the kid in two days. I heard the name and number of an airline flight.

“I make my own arrangements,” I said.

There was a protest.

“Then get someone else.”

A silence, then ill-natured acquiescence. He hung up.

Rachel put out a hand to caress my chest. “When do we have to be there?”

“Two days. I want to be there sooner if we can book a flight.”

She stretched and would’ve gotten up to check her computer, but I snared her first.

“We got a few minutes.”

She settled back beside me sleepily. We took the edge off, nothing too energetic, nothing too long. Before long we got up. I checked the airlines online. Rachel to look in the fridge. By the time I found a cheap flight west, Rachel had coffee made and was working on pancakes with sausage. After breakfast, we packed what few things we expected to take, Rachel’s in a small backpack, mine in my usual duffel. We dressed and headed downstairs to hail a cab to the airport.

The trip to the airport was quick at this hour, and the sun was just creeping over the horizon when we hit the terminal. Rachel looked coolly professional in her usual streamlined black, and I expected that most people noted her elegance and tiny size and skipped everything else. I looked a little better than my usual scruffy bounty hunter, conceding to more of a match to Rachel. It was a long four hours to San Francisco, and once there we had a couple of hours to wait. We headed to the international terminal, got something to eat, and once we boarded our plane, we dozed for as much of the flight as possible. It was a long one, and we landed in Burkan before lunch local time. We got only a couple of stony looks from Customs about our Canadian passports, and the search of our carry-on bags was perfunctory at best, as all we brought with us were a couple changes of clothing. Once outside, it was tropically hot and humid, and Rachel needed no encouragement to pull a white cotton shirt on over her black tank top to give herself a little shade. I lit up a cigar while she got herself arranged. Then we got a cab. We spent the first part of the trip just driving around, ostensibly taking in the sights, but in reality looking at the lay of the land and where things were.

Once we’d done that to my satisfaction, we headed for the nearest tourist trap bazaar and I played the long-suffering man whose woman loved shopping while Rachel bypassed the tacky tourist renditions of Ganesha and Shiva and the Buddha to browse the stacks of hand-blocked saris and hand-woven rugs and finely worked brass. She bought a bright magenta and orange silk scarf and draped it around her neck. She bought a length of batik cloth patterned with blue leaves. She bought a sari bodice and wrap in her favorite shade of jade green. She paid cash for a set of nunchakus with the comment that they would impress her nephew who was really into kung fu movies. Then she bought some high-quality antique temple bowls and arranged for shipment to her New York antique shop.

We ended up in the better side of the tourist district where we got something to eat. My healing factor neutralizes any food-borne germ, but Rachel didn’t have that luxury, so we stuck to something innocuous to keep her healthy until we headed home. From there, we hoofed a few blocks to a quieter tourist trap hotel with a desk clerk who didn’t give us a second look, and got a room.

Once inside, Rachel and I swept the place thoroughly, and only then did Rachel take a load off. I had other plans – I went out for a couple of hours, padding around places that weren’t on our taxi tour of the city. I scoped out the adoption agency, and watched who came and went for a while. There wasn’t much to see, which on one hand was good. On the other… despite what I saw, I still wasn’t convinced that this deal was straight. About midnight I headed back to the hotel room and Rachel. She’d spent some time with her PDA reviewing the information she’d downloaded, and after I filled her in on what I’d learned, she gave me a quick rundown on the ongoing war between the ruling families. Maybe this stuff didn’t matter… but given that my senses hadn’t seen fit to settle or tell me why they wouldn’t settle, the background didn’t hurt. I was grimy and tired, so I showered quickly and bedded down with Rachel for the night.

Early the next morning, we geared up and got a couple bowls of rice for breakfast. When we left, we left nothing in the hotel room. Rachel’s nunchakus were in the top of her backpack. I gave the hack the name of a third rate hotel. Rachel was silent, but her heart rate was even and her scent was calm. We got out in front of a seedy place, and I stayed on the sidewalk until the hack had driven out of sight. Then I pulled out my cell phone.

“I’m here.”

A voice asked where here was.

“Just tell me where the pickup is, and what time.”

“I ain’t here to socialize, bub. Place and time is all I need.”

More protest, then a pause while the lackey conferred with someone. Another voice came on the line. I got a place and a time, but it was to meet the people who’d bring me to the kid. I didn’t like that.

“I don’t need a damn’ escort,” I growled. “You put obstacles in the way, bub, I don’t guarantee safe delivery. Simple as that.”

More pushback, and enough insistence that I knew protesting would get me nowhere. I thought a curse, but growled acceptance and hung up.

“We’re supposed to meet the guys who take us to the kid in three hours. I don’t like that. I’m thinkin’ we need to show up early.”

Rachel nodded as I hailed another cab. She’d been looking watchfully around us while I talked, and I trusted that her internal jamming device had protected us from being overheard. When the cab pulled up, we got in and followed our previous routine – I gave the hack an address, neither of us said a word, and we bailed out without a fuss.

The adoption agency was in a nondescript block building on the edge of the respectable part of town. Rachel’s heart sped up a little, and she was sweating in the heat, but so far, so good. She surreptitiously dug a pair of thin leather gloves and the nunchakus out of her backpack. She put the gloves on, put the backpack over her shoulder, and took the nunchakus in hand.

“Turn on the sun, O,” I murmured. Rachel indulged in a faint smile as her eyes glowed eerily with bright gold light, a light she masked behind her sunglasses. I nodded approval and headed for the door with Rachel a step behind.

“Man just inside,” Rachel murmured softly as I touched the door handle. I grunted acknowledgement as we strolled inside.

The thug Rachel had warned me of sat in a cheap plastic chair to the right of the door. His shirt had a badge on the sleeve and a nameplate over the pocket, but he looked more like a beefy dock enforcer than a front desk reception committee. Still, this was Burkan, not New York. He gave Rachel a wary look, then cut his eyes to me. He tensed, but I only leveled a considering glare at him and took my time with my cigar. “Tell Tencanno Wolverine’s here.”

The thug said something to that effect into his walkie-talkie. Maybe thirty seconds passed before the walkie-talkie squawked with an answer. He looked at me again.

“You’re too early.”

“Call me conscientious to a fault.”

He talked into the walkie-talkie some more. I understood enough of the local patois to know he was nervous. Finally, he pointed down the hall.

“Second door on the left. The girl stays here.”

“The hell she does, bub.”

I turned on my heel, Rachel keeping pace with me.

“Gun,” Rachel whispered, already turning. I turned with her, but she flicked her rice flails out like the tongue of a serpent and smacked the automatic pistol out of the guy’s hand. I snagged the gun out of the air and tossed it to Rachel. Then I was in the thug’s face, his shirt in my hand and my claws in his face.

“The woman’s with me, asshole. Got it?”

He blanched and nodded rapidly. I retracted my claws and took another puff of my cigar as Rachel clicked the pistol’s safety on and stuck the weapon in the back of her pants. Then I clocked the thug once, enough to put him out for a while. I took his belt in my hand and dragged him down the hall with us.

“Ought to be more people,” I muttered. “Smells are way down.”

“No emotions, either,” Rachel confirmed. “Just some in the room the doorman pointed to.”

“Agreed.” Just outside the door of that room, I let the guard drop against the wall.

“Three inside,” she murmured. “Two by the door.”

I sniffed to confirm her count, if not the positions. “Open the door, push it in, and get behind me.”

She did as I asked. In a few seconds, one of the thugs on the inside stuck his head out. I grabbed him, disarmed him, slugged him hard, and shoved his inert carcass back in the room with enough force that he hit the far wall and fell to the floor. I passed the pistol to Rachel. When the second one came out, I repeated the drill and sent him after his mate. I kept this gun, hauled up the doorman, and sent him after his mates. Then I sauntered inside with Rachel padding behind me.

“You Tencanno?” I growled at the man who’d bolted upright from his chair behind the desk. Unlike the other three guys, this one was slight, disheveled in a white short sleeve shirt and rumpled blue pants – a bureaucrat.

He looked me up and down, swallowed, nodded.

“You better have a real good reason for annoyin’ me,” I said. “You got some kinda problem with deliverin’ the kid?”

“Who’s she?” Tencanno pointed nervously at Rachel. The nunchakus had him worried.

“Electra. Spiderman’s busy today.” I glanced at her as she moved around the room. She was running the standard sweep for bugs. Curious. I arched an eyebrow.

“Keep going,” she said softly in Japanese.

I nodded. “Where’s the kid?” I directed at Tencanno.

Tencanno eyed the two pistols stuck in the back of Rachel’s waistband. “I – I told you there’s been a delay.”

“What kinda delay?”

He looked at Rachel searching, then he looked at me. I didn’t have to look at her. I smelled her apprehension and heard her heart rate go up. Her empathy was picking up nothing good.

“What kinda delay?”

“An unavoidable one.”

I glared at the guy. “I thought you wanted this under the radar, bub. Are you in control of your operation or not? Any screw-up and I end up pushin’ through a lot of noise at the airport and you get a rep for bad business.”

Tencanno’s Adam’s apple jumped. So did Rachel’s heart rate. He wasn’t lying, but all wasn’t what it seemed, either.

“You come in here like an army – you’d attract attention at the airport with or without a child,” Tencanno sputtered.

I leveled my gaze on Tencanno. “I match whatever’s sent against me, bub. So where’s the kid?”

The walkie-talkie squawked. Tencanno looked at me before he moved. I nodded, and he picked up the device and spoke into it – English, not the local patois. Interesting.

“Two hours,” came through loud and clear on the walkie-talkie.

Tencanno’s gaze swung nervously back to me. “Unavoidable, but short.”

“Wolverine.” Rachel pointed to the ceiling. By the time I yanked the first audio bug free, she’d found the second one behind a mirror. I made fragments of that while she retrieved the walkie-talkies from the inert thugs and methodically smashed them with the butt of her nunchakus.

“They’re as filthy as they come,” she murmured in Japanese, pointing at the thugs. “But he isn’t.”

She advanced on Tencanno quietly, but he was already so shaken that he backed up until the desk stopped him. Rachel took his hand gently, stroking it. Not only did it calm him; it strengthened her connection to his emotions.

“We’ll try to get you out with us,” she said quietly in English. “But you have to tell me the truth. I’ll know if you don’t. Do you understand me?”

He didn’t want to, but that didn’t deter Rachel. “You really work for the adoption agency, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“They don’t.” Rachel pointed to the three thugs.

He shook his head, agreeing with her.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your family?”

His eyes widened. “Are you going to kill me? I’ve done what you asked –”

Rachel squeezed his hand quickly. “I’m not going to hurt you. Why do they want us to take the child?”

He gulped convulsively, but couldn’t find words to speak.

“It isn’t for an adoption, is it?”

He gulped again. When Rachel took off her sunglasses to reveal her glowing eyes, he shook his head frantically.

“Kidnapping? Something else?”

The guy quailed, and the smell of his fear was rank. “I don’t know for sure –”

“Spill what you know, bub, and the faster the better,” I growled, bad cop to Rachel’s good cop. “Or you’ll be the one caught in the crossfire when this goes down.”

The guy looked between Rachel and me desperately. Rachel shrugged sympathetically.

“He’s right. The sooner we know, the better we can deal with it.”

He couldn’t nod fast enough. “They called me a week ago. I thought they were with that actress, the one who’d visited and arranged to adopt one of our orphans. Our government did not like all the press about her adopting the child. When these people called, they were very informed and helpful and understanding, so I told them the details thinking they would protect the agency and the child. But two days ago, these men showed up.” He pointed to the thugs. “They kept me here the whole time. This morning they threw out all of my employees. I heard them talking once or twice. I think they plan to give you a child and then accuse you of kidnapping and plotting to overthrow the government. Maybe they will kill the child and you and then make the accusation. I’m not sure. But some of the bullets will surely find me so that I can’t contradict their story.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. Where do they have the kid now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think those three knew, either.”

“Do you know who the child is?” Rachel asked.

The man gulped but shook his head.

Rachel looked at me and switched to Japanese. “If the government wants to frame us for it, then the child might be from the ruling family, as terrible as that sounds. They could claim we were working with the other family to undermine the regime.”

“Could be.”

“How do you want to play this?”

“Can’t do anything until the kid gets here. But I ain’t waitin’ here. Better we find some place close to hunker down, then try to snatch the kid when the opposition arrives. Then we need to hotfoot it to the Canadian Embassy. We gotta make sure that kid stays safe and alive and in this country. We do anythin’ else, and we take every bit of dirt they can lay on us.”

Rachel nodded and pulled out her PDA. “I’ll plot us a couple of paths to the embassy.”

“I’ll see what I can scout from the windows. When you’re done, see what you can get out of our friend.”

She nodded and bent over her PDA.

I shot a glare at Tencanno and popped my claws. He flinched like a scared rabbit. “You do exactly as she says, or when she’s through fryin’ you I’ll start, and you’ll pray for a bullet,” I snarled. “Got it?”

Tencanno’s head bobbed up and down frantically.

“Take a seat.” I pointed my claws at the floor. When Tencanno had clambered down onto his butt, I nodded. “Stay sharp, Omen. Five meter rule.”

“You got it.” Rachel looked up from her PDA long enough to ensure that the distance between her and Tencanno was no less than the distance I’d noted. She put her PDA in her front pants pocket and took her rice flails in hand. “I have three paths from here to the embassy, each about seven miles. There’s no clear path available and we have to cross a single-lane bridge over a river, so it won’t be a high speed trip any way we cut it.”

“Noted. I’m gonna take a quick gander.”

“Go.”

I did a quick reconnoiter of the two floors. There were no other occupants to distract me, and lots of signs that people had cleared out in a hurry. I kept a low profile as I scanned the surrounding buildings from the windows. The alley behind the building was narrow, too narrow to offer much chance of retreat if a truck pulled up there. The front door opened on a busy thoroughfare with lots of civilians coming and going. No side entrances, not even a window, so we were stuck with just the front and back doors. I came back to the first floor and relayed what I’d learned to Rachel.

“If I were doin’ this,” I murmured to Rachel, “I’d bring the kid in the back door and have a truckful of grunts at the front to storm the place. That’s why we can’t stay here. You learn anythin’ from our friend?”

He’d been forthcoming about the businesses around the building. There wasn’t much to work with – a noodle shop two doors down, a laundry, another office building. The only thing that offered a place to hide was a burned-out dog shop towards the east end of the alley. I beckoned to Rachel and Tencanno.

“We’re outa here. Tencanno, the only thing you have goin’ for you is her forbearance –” I jerked my thumb at Rachel, “– so you do exactly as you’re told and we’ll do our best to get you clear. Don’t think, don’t hesitate, just do what we tell you, or I throw you to the wolves. Got it?”

He nodded quickly as we exited the back door. We headed east down the alley to the blackened, sagging remains of the dog shop. I wormed my way inside to check the remains of the kitchen. It wasn’t safe, but it wasn’t going to fall down in the next two hours, either. I backed out and pointed Rachel inside.

“Stay low. Call my cell so we can talk. I’m takin’ our bud here to watch the front door.”

She slithered inside and found a place that kept her out of sight but still gave her a sliver of a view of the alley. My phone buzzed as she placed the call as asked. I put the receiver in my ear and confirmed the connection, then took Tencanno by the arm and hustled him down the alley.

“Where are we going?” he sputtered.

“Lunch. Stay cool.”

By the time we got to the end of the alley, we were walking slowly enough that no one cast us much of a look. I steered Tencanno to the noodle shop and we got a couple of bowls of the local favorite. It tasted like swill, but I scooped it up anyway.

I didn’t have to drag out the noodles. I spotted a military-looking truck coming down the street about twenty minutes after I’d left Rachel.

“Omen,” I said softly.

“Here. So are a lot of five-inch cockroaches. Ugh.”

I grinned. “Company’s early. Anything there?”

“Hang on. I think so.”

I waited for a couple of seconds. “I got a truck full of soldiers parked at the front door,” I advised. “No sign of the kid.”

“There’s a civilian car coming up the alley. Small covered jeep. Two men. One’s going in the back door. The other’s waiting with the jeep. Wait… I don’t smell the baby. Do you?”

“Wind’s not in my direction.”

“Then I need to get closer.”

“Watch it, Omen.”

“There’s a car seat in the back of the jeep. But no baby. I can’t sense the baby.”

I didn’t think. “I’m on my way, O. West end of the alley. No way they’d put the kid in a government truck if they’re trying to pin a kidnapping on us. Sit tight.”

“Roger.”

I ditched my noodles and took Tencanno’s arm. “Keep it real quiet, bub. It’s goin’ down.”

I steered Tencanno casually away from the truck, down the street to the corner. Once around it, I dragged Tencanno into a run. “Keep up or you’re left behind,” I growled, and let him follow me as best he could. I sprinted for the alley.

“The baby’s not in the jeep,” Rachel’s voice whispered in my ear. “But there’s going to be two people coming down the east end of the alley in a minute and I think they have him. Don’t let them see you when you turn into the alley!”

I’d just turned into the west end of the alley. “Copy,” I snapped, and skidded to a stop. I plastered myself to the nearest wall behind a pile of garbage barrels and managed to snare Tencanno as he blundered past. I yanked him in beside me. “Stay here until I get us clear!”

He nodded again, and shrank into the space I left. I slunk down the alley until I was two doors down from the adoption agency. At the other end of the alley, two people were approaching, one with a bundle in her arms. I faded behind a stack of broken pallets and waited.

They’d passed the dog shop and met the man waiting with the jeep when Rachel came blustering out, chattering angrily in Japanese at the trio for all she was worth. She was so blatant about it that they didn’t know what to do for a second. She got in their face, keeping them turned and focused away from me while she pointed to the dog shop and angrily demanding to know what she was supposed to do to get the right permits to build the place back. They didn’t have a clue about what she was saying, and good thing, because she slipped in that the woman had the baby and that she was running out of things to say. I slapped both men senseless a second later, and put an arm around the throat of the woman and squeezed until Rachel was able to pry the baby out of her arms. I was gentler with her than I was with her companions, but the end result was the same. They were all in the same condition as the three thugs inside.

“Logan!” Rachel exclaimed, and looked at me with stricken eyes. She’d unwrapped the blanketed bundle to reveal a very small, blood-covered infant. “This is a newborn child. He’s not hurt, but he’s not even washed from the delivery and there’s still a clamp on his umbilical cord. Someone took this child from his mother just seconds after he was born. That’s why there was a delay – the mother was still giving birth.”

What was there to say? That this was even sleazier than we’d thought? I pointed to the jeep. “Get him in the front seat. You’re drivin’.”

“Help me move the car seat.”

I worked buckles and straps, wondering how parents ever figured how to fasten these things without a manual, and tossed it into the front seat. While I struggled, Rachel reswaddled the kid and rigged the batik cloth she’d bought at the bazaar around herself. Then she pulled out her PDA, secured it in a pocket, and was about to replace the earpiece to her phone with the PDA jack.

“Keep the phone,” I ordered. “What’s the cloth for?”

She plugged the PDA into her other ear, then belted in the car seat a lot faster than I’d gotten it out. Then she belted the kid in tightly. “Baby carrier. Not sure, but my senses tell me I might need it.”

“Fair enough. Let’s get outa here.”

“Ditch this?”

She held up a walkie-talkie that’d been on the driver’s seat, questioning. I poked claws though it and tossed it with the three unconscious bodies. Rachel got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. I yanked the fabric panels surrounding the back of the jeep loose from their lower fastenings and climbed into the back.

“Give me one of your pistols,” I said tersely, “then head for the embassy.”

She handed the weapon back, threw the engine in gear, and headed down the alley. As we drove by Tencanno, I held back the fabric panel and beckoned to him.

“Come on!”

He came scampering as fast as he could. Rachel let him tumble inside, then accelerated down the alley.

“Get down and stay there,” I warned him. “It’s gonna get hairy, and the best thing you can do about it is let us work. Got it?”

He nodded frantically, and braced himself against the side of the jeep with both arms and legs. I took the side behind Rachel and hung on to the top roll bar.

We almost made a clean break. Just before we rounded the corner, soldiers came spilling out of the back of the adoption agency.

“We’re gonna have company,” I warned. “Make it fast. I’ll handle what comes after us.”

“Roger that,” Rachel replied. She whipped the jeep through the narrow streets, dodging pedestrians and the occasional escaping chicken near a small market corner. Sirens blared into life somewhere behind us, and I smelled Rachel’s apprehension rise. Funny – she wasn’t as worried as Tencanno was. The stench of his fear nearly overwhelmed everything else. I guess military juntas brought out the best in their subjects.

“Doin’ fine. Just noise. No sign yet.”

“Good. We have five more miles to the embassy. Uh-oh – I have to detour.”

A huge construction site had closed the road Rachel had apparently expected to take, and she swerved right rather than the left she wanted. Unfortunately, that pointed us right at the blaring sirens. Rachel managed to find a left to take before she saw the cause of the noise, but I saw it, and the truck sprinted after us like a shot.

“Incoming,” I warned. “Looks like the truck that I saw outside the agency. Probably six soldiers in it.”

“I see it,” Rachel confirmed, looking in the rear view mirror. “Be careful. There’s a big marketplace up ahead and there’s going to be a lot of pedestrians.”

“Understood.” I waited until the truck was a block away from us. “Slow down.”

“Slow – what?” Startled, Rachel shot me a surprised look as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard.

“Do it! Before we get to the market.”

“Roger.” Rachel jerked her gaze back to the street ahead of us and slowed the jeep to let the truck catch up. I kept a sharp eye peeled on the driver and the guy sitting next to him, looking for any sign that they were about to fire a weapon. The one riding shotgun pointed and gesticulated at us, and the driver bore down, but there was no sign of guns yet. I let the truck get right up on us, less than a car length away, and it was a testament to how much Rachel trusted me that she didn’t question my sanity, though her knuckles were dead white on the wheel. When they were two feet closer, I pulled the fabric panel up to point Rachel’s confiscated pistol at the front tire and pull the trigger. The truck lurched and swerved, but stopped before it did any damage.

“Go!” I shouted to Rachel, and she didn’t waste any time in sending the jeep jolting down the street. She hung a left at the marketplace she mentioned, and we disappeared into the mess.

We had a few moments to calm while Rachel carefully threaded the jeep through the hustle and bustle. She stayed on the outskirts – the internal allees looked jammed as people tried to finish their errands before the end of the day. I chewed my lip. The market wouldn’t be the only thing that closed before long.

“Get us out of here faster if you can,” I said. “The embassy’s gonna close if we don’t get a move on.”

Rachel obediently snaked us out of the market and onto a street a hair wider and a second or two faster. She turned onto an even bigger street – where two trucks were waiting for us.

What Rachel said as she threw the jeep into reverse and did a wrenching 180 was neither elegant nor feminine. Despite the precariousness of our position, I couldn’t suppress a grin as I pulled Tencanno back into the jeep before he went flying. Then I grabbed the roll bar again and hung on as Rachel got seriously into driving.

The sirens cranked up, and people scattered as Rachel laid on the horn and pushed the jeep as fast as she dared on the crowded streets. One of the trucks turned off, I figured to try and cut us off. Rachel saw it and suddenly geared down and turned onto a street I thought was too small, but we got through without scraping more than a couple of trashcans. She shot across the next street, behind the truck, and kept going. After another block, she turned hard, screeching tires and all, back onto the road. That put us only a few car lengths ahead of the truck.

“Too close!” I warned, and got ready to shoot out some more tires.

“Can’t help it! We have no way to the embassy if we don’t get across that bridge. So hold on!”

She drove, and I shot at a tire. The good news was that I stopped that truck. The bad news was that the second one showed up, and these guys weren’t above trying my tactic on us. Rachel swerved wildly which didn’t help their aim or mine, but we stayed ahead of the mess. Rachel bullied the jeep over the swaying one-lane cable bridge, leaning on the horn and ignoring all of the screaming people and bailing bicyclists. The one lone car coming the other way must’ve taken one look at the crazy Japanese woman driving and quickly backed up. We shot off the bridge and headed down the main drag towards embassy row.

Then the whole world turned upside down.

A car had careened out of one of the side streets and plowed right into the driver’s side of the jeep. I don’t know if it was a planned crash or just someone in as big of a hurry as Rachel was. I heard Rachel scream, but I had all I could do to keep body and soul together for the next seconds as the jeep rolled over. Rachel escaped the worst of it, because the impact was right over the back axle, and Tencanno was thrown free. The jeep lay on its passenger side, suspending Rachel in the air and the baby askew but safe in his car seat, screaming like crazy. I didn’t blame him – I was under the jeep, caught by my legs. The weight wasn’t enough to break my adamantium-coated bones, but it hurt like hell and there was a lot of blood.

Bottom line, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Rachel got her seatbelt loose and fell out of the jeep like a rag doll. She groaned, but scrambled up and tried to push the jeep over. She had a gash on her arm and scrapes on both elbows, but otherwise was okay.

“Get the kid and run,” I snapped. “We’re still a klick away!”

“Wolverine –”

“Do it, Omen! Grab the kid and run like you stole somethin’!”

Her eyes argued, but her body didn’t. She pulled the pistol out of her waistband and put it in my hand. Then she got the kid out of the car seat and into the cloth against her chest. She tied the silk scarf on top of the cloth and around the baby to keep him close to her body. She whipped her nunchakus at the first guy who dared approach the wreck and sprinted off.

The next person I saw had a military uniform and an automatic rifle. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

 

* * *

 

So much for me keeping a low profile in this story. As soon as Logan had mentioned this job back in my condo, I knew I’d end up outed. When he brought up the Canadian Embassy just minutes ago, I really knew it. So be it. I had a small charge to take care of, and I left Logan behind, following orders like the soldier he’d taught me to be. I had so much adrenaline screaming through my body that fleeing like a rabbit down the middle of a decaying Burkani street carrying a squalling newborn seemed surreal. Faces, colors, and buildings flashed by like images from a kaleidoscope. I didn’t think about Logan trapped under a wrecked jeep in a pool of his own blood, or of Tencanno cradling a badly broken arm beside him. I just thought about the small bundle tied against my chest and ran. I still heard sirens behind me and tried to gauge how much farther I had to go. I had to save my strength to reach the embassy.

The sirens got louder. I tried to run faster, but my legs felt like dead meat. The first of the foreign embassies loomed ahead. The Canadian one was another two blocks on. I pushed myself harder, ignoring my burning lungs. There it was! I was almost there –

They were locking the gate.

I screamed and sprinted harder. “No! Wait! Don’t lock the gate! I have to get in!”

The gate was almost latched when I pounded up. I stuck my foot between the gate and the post, grimacing when pressure came painfully to bear on my instep.

“Back away from the gate, ma’am,” the Canadian soldier warned me. “Back away from the gate!”

“You don’t understand!” I panted, fighting to suck air into my lungs. “This baby has been kidnapped! I’m trying to prevent a national security issue here, Lieutenant! You have to let me in!”

“No, ma’am, I don’t. Now back away from the gate, or I’ll clear it by any means necessary.”

 

* * *

 

The soldier pointed the barrel of his automatic rifle at my head and started shouting. I didn’t understand his words, but his body language was clear enough. I braced myself for the shot and hoped it hit my body rather than my head. Neither is good, but I’d be a lot faster at getting myself out from under the jeep if my brain were in one piece.

Another voice started shouting. Tencanno. That surprised me. He was a shaky little guy, but there he was, cradling his broken arm against his body as he tried to distract the soldier. I made the most of the moment and shoved hard. A long second passed before the weight rolled away from me, and neither of my legs was up to walking. But I managed to slither close enough to snag the soldier’s leg just as he swung his rifle butt at Tencanno. I wasn’t able to deflect the entire blow, but it was enough to keep Tencanno’s head in one piece. He went down in a lump, then I dragged the soldier down, and a second later a lot of soldiers piled on top. Good. That kept the bullets from flying, and my fists were enough to make short work of the bodies. In a couple of minutes my legs were more or less able to bear my weight, if not correctly, while I pounded the remaining soldiers out of the fight. Before anyone stopped seeing stars, I scooped up Tencanno, threw him into the passenger side of the truck, and hauled myself behind the wheel. I threw it into gear and set off for the Canadian Embassy.

 

* * *

 

“This child is the newborn son of the Imperial Dragon Emperor for Life Gwee Doh Ghao!” I screamed at the baby-faced Canadian soldier blocking my path. “He’s been kidnapped! I’m trying to protect him! Do you want to start an international incident? Do you want to be responsible for abetting his kidnappers and maybe his murderers?”

That gave the young lieutenant pause, but a Burkani military truck hurtled into view down the street with alarms at top speed, and his lip tightened. Maybe he thought I was the kidnapper. He shoved the gate against me hard, unbalancing me, and then drew his baton to break my grip. I got a hand on the baton and went into him, hard to do with the baby against my chest, but I pulled hard enough that the gate swung open. I turned my rice flails on the officer, catching him on the ear, then pulled him closer into me as he tried to recover from the blow. I dropped and rolled over my backpack, flipping the man over my head and into the street. That brought more howls from the baby and more soldiers from the door of the embassy.

“I have a Canadian passport!” I screamed as two more soldiers circled. “You have to let me in!”

The men dove for my left arm, the one supporting the baby, and dodged my cross body shot with the flails. One of them managed to duck to my right side, and the pair of them grabbed my arms and hustled me into the street. They threw me down, my arms and my hips scraping painfully against the hard-packed dirt as I tried to protect the baby. I rolled around him to cushion him with my body, but by the time I got to my feet, the two Canadian soldiers had drawn their pistols and leveled them at my chest. I held my ground, panting, instinctively wrapping my arms around the baby. I looked down the street. The truck was close. It slewed around in a skid, brakes shrieking, trapping me between it and the locked gate –

“Listen to the lady,” a voice graveled in my phone jack as well as behind me. The truck door opened, and Logan got himself out. He was a bloody, torn mess and his right leg was twisted unnaturally at the knee, but he limped around the cab and got Tencanno out from the other side and over his shoulder. The Burkani looked worse than when I’d seen him last, so there must’ve been a fight while Logan extricated himself from the wreck. He limped forward towards the gate and popped one set of claws.

“You open this gate, or I will. You know who I am.”

The soldiers exchanged glances, but the gate duly opened. The gate closed before another truck squealed to a stop in front of the embassy and eight Burkani soldiers and an officer boiled out. A furious litany erupted from the officer, but Logan ignored him to hand off Tencanno to the Canadian soldiers.

“Sorry I’m late,” Logan said casually as he glanced askance at me. “Got stuck in traffic.”

I swallowed down my relief to chuckle. “Don’t you dare blame it on a woman driver.”

“Nah.” He shook his head and pulled out a cigar. “Woman driver did damn’ good. Sorry, darlin’. Gotta get this leg straightened out.”

He nodded at the fancy iron fence around the embassy, and I helped him over to it. He ignored the shouting Burkani soldiers just beyond and wedged his right boot between two of the rails.

“Sir,” one of the Canadian soldiers approached warningly. “Step away from the fence.”

Logan glared at the man, but I put a hand on his chest, staving off his snarl.

“Give the man a minute, lieutenant,” I said politely. “I know you’re sensitive about your fence, but since you know who he is, then I’m sure you don’t want him to endure that dislocated knee any longer than he has to. He’s a lot crankier when he’s in pain.”

“I sure am,” Logan growled at the officer. “But if you insist, I’ll be glad to rearrange your priorities for ya right now before I take care of my knee.”

The man held up his hands. “When you’re ready, sir. I don’t want to give the Burkanis any more to yell about, that’s all.”

Logan whuffed, but he nodded and his body eased some of its tension. I tried to hold Logan steady as he pulled his leg straight. I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to see the unnatural twist straighten out, but I heard enough pops and cracks over the shouts of the Burkani soldiers to wince despite the lack of visuals. When he stopped pulling, I opened my eyes.

“That smarts,” he muttered in Japanese, his face easing out of a grimace. He freed his boot, straightened, and took his arm from around my shoulders. “Better. All right, darlin’. Let’s get inside.”

I patted the bundle that still sputtered with an occasional outraged hiccup. “He’s not very happy. It was a rough trip from the jeep. I hope there’s a doctor among the staff of Canada’s finest to check him over. And we need to ask about the mother.”

“On it. Oh, if I have to tell ‘em you’re not really a Canadian citizen, I’ll do my best to get you released on my recognizance.”

I flicked him a measured glance. “You do that. And I’ll do my best to explain why I’ve got a forged Canadian passport.”

Logan grinned back. “Lookin’ forward to it, kid. Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Not much more to tell. The Canadian ambassador was quick to call the Burkani government with the story that Canadian operatives had thwarted a brazen kidnapping attempt on the Burkani ruling family’s newest addition. The official story was that a new rebel group had done the deed, but the military junta had been the real culprit, hoping to blame the main opposition party. They’d quietly spirited the baby right from the delivery room in the arms of a neonatal nurse to the couple who’d smuggled the baby out of the hospital. By the time anyone figured out what had happened, the kid was halfway to the capital. The ambassador must’ve had a private talk with somebody, because by the time Rachel and I headed home, one half of the junta was busy offing the other half, and the main rebel opposition party was calling for elections. Maybe the change would be for the better. Maybe not.

Rachel kept her own counsel through the debriefing, content to let me do the talking. One of the few good things about being a part of as many black ops programs as I have was that I had the discretion to tell the regular military as much or as little as I thought best, so I kept it sketchy. I knew how nervous Rachel was about Weapon X or any other exploiter finding out about her talents. I passed her off as another secret operative, and she kept her scent controlled and the light out of her eyes, so no one suspected the truth. Everything we’d learned through her talents came off as a credit to my experience, good preparation, and quick thinking, with Tencanno’s cooperation and a little luck thrown in. I thought about how many men I’d served with who would’ve bridled at not getting any of the credit for success, but Rachel didn’t have an ego that needed that kind of stoking. She believed what a lot of soldiers didn’t – it was better to be Merlin than King Arthur, because more people shot at the king than the power behind the throne.

The only thing she quietly made a point of was to wash, diaper, and feed the kid. The embassy staff didn’t include a doctor, and by the time one came over from the Brits, she had the baby cleaned up and swaddled in a clean bath towel, happily sleeping in her arms as she sang him an old Japanese lullaby under her breath. Good thing she handled it – there wasn’t a single Canadian embassy employee who had a family or kids. That made sense, given the kind of turmoil that regularly wracked Burkan. As an only child, Rachel didn’t have much more experience. But she was gentle and patient, and good at coaxing people to go out for diapers, bottles, and formula. She’d done such a good job that the sawbones took longer to bandage her cuts and scrapes than to check the baby. There’d be no legitimate complaints about how the kid was cared for once we’d gotten him to the embassy.

Watching her … can’t go there. Nothing’s changed.

In the late afternoon, after a quick meal we were given American Army fatigues – interesting, that, from a Canadian embassy – to replace our battered clothes and quietly driven to the Thai border. Wasn’t legit how we crossed, but that’s typical in my line of work. A US helicopter was standing by to take us to the nearest American military base. From there, we were slipped onto a troop transport plane with a bunch of grunts returning home from a tour of duty. The captain’s stripes on our fatigues kept most people from talking to us, so except for a single salute to a major on the way to the plane, Rachel didn’t have to do much except follow me. She was good at picking up the right postures, the right walk, and only I saw her eyes glowing behind her sunglasses to know how she did it. Bottom line, she kept attention away from herself so that we were just another couple of tired soldiers.

By the time we hit the States, we were both exhausted. If I’d been alone, I would’ve crashed for the night in a barracks somewhere, but I wasn’t going to prolong Rachel’s time with anyone’s military. As tired as she was, she was still apprehensive enough for me to smell it, so I got us off the base on the local bus.

“Where are we?” Rachel whispered wearily in Japanese as the base receded in the distance.

“Just outside San Francisco.”

“What time is it?”

I looked outside at the moon. “’Bout an hour before midnight.”

She yawned and leaned her head back against the seat, cradling her knapsack in her lap. “If I fall asleep, shake me. Once we reach the city, I have a place where we can crash.”

“Gotcha covered.”

The ride into town took about an hour, but Rachel kept herself awake for most of it. We bailed downtown, near enough to the tourist traps to get a taxi without trouble. Rachel gave the guy an address, and in another half hour, we were outside a quiet condo tower. Rachel took us inside to a flat that was sparsely decorated in Japanese tatami mats and low tables, décor her father had savored. But the bathroom was clearly her mother’s doing – it had a big steam shower and a whirlpool tub. It was a mark of her exhaustion that Rachel bypassed a soak in the tub for a hot shower. She stripped off most of her bandages and washed gingerly, wincing when the water hit her scrapes while I scrubbed down. Neither of us dragged out such a much-needed exercise, and we were quick to crawl into bed. I didn’t have time to register how hungry I was before I fell asleep curled beside Rachel.

The sun had long since risen when I woke. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was – never the best way to wake, given some of the places I’ve been. But I didn’t spasm too badly, and I calmed when I remembered Rachel beside me –

“It’s okay, Logan,” Rachel whispered sleepily, her hand groping through the bed linens to find my arm. She stroked it quietly for a few seconds. “We’re in San Francisco. It’s okay.”

So much for thinking that I didn’t spasm too badly. Rachel’s eyes remained closed, but her lips curved up in a smile.

“You probably woke up in less of a huff than you think,” she murmured. “It’s just that I pick up things from you a lot easier than I do from anyone else.”

I relaxed and eased Rachel’s back against my chest, curling around her carefully without brushing against her scraped elbows. “Then you oughta know exactly what I’m thinkin’ about right now, darlin’.”

“Eggs and bacon,” she shot back promptly with a teasing smile.

“Before that,” I growled, and gave her a reason to open her eyes. Not that I let her do much else other than savor what came next. Then again, she gave as good as she got, which worked out all around.

“We’re going to have to go out for the eggs and bacon,” Rachel admitted later. “Nobody knew we were coming, and the kitchen’s empty.”

I kept her snuggled against my chest. “Guess I’ll have to keep sayin’ how good you were backin’ me up in Burkan.”

Rachel’s sigh was resigned. “I tried not to leave any fingerprints or any blood, but I’m probably on someone’s radar as a ‘resource’ anyway.”

She was probably right. “Regular services don’t get much info about the special ops guys. I didn’t say you were one of those, but you clearly weren’t anything else, so you’ve got a screen. But you might want to sign up for some special ops classes just to be careful.”

“Ones you’ll be glad to teach, is that it?” Rachel riposted knowingly.

“If you want ‘em, I’m glad to teach ‘em.”

“And if I take them, I’ll give someone more reason to call on me.”

Her tone was bratty, but inside she was a lot more apprehensive about the implications of that than she was willing to talk about. Her scent waxed with longing, drawing my wince.

“You thinkin’ about Seattle again?” That’s where Rachel had fled when she’d tried to sort out the aftermath of Sabretooth’s death.

She was silent a long time. “Sometimes. But you know where Seattle is.”

I swallowed. “You want out?”

She knew what I meant, and thought about it. She thought about it hard. I kept a lid on my emotions, my body, tried not to think, but some things at my core I’ve never been able to control, and it crept into my scent, my muscles, my heart that people don’t think I have. Rachel’s hand covered the back of mine.

“I know,” she whispered. “Why do you think I went to Burkan?”

I winced. “I shouldn’ta asked, darlin’ –”

“You did because you wanted me there, even knowing what it meant. And I went because I wanted to be there, even knowing what it meant.”

I held her close.

“I know what I’m going to get,” Rachel said clearly, unemotionally. “I’ll either go down in a place like Burkan and leave you behind, or I’ll die of old age and leave you behind. There’s not much difference.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. What answer was there? Not for the first time, I wanted mutant talents other than adamantium, claws, and healing factor. None of them was strong enough to get me what I wanted.

Rachel’s hand stroked mine. “It’s okay, Logan. You’re not the only one who wants. We have something. Don’t waste it by wanting more.”

I’d told her that in New York, and it’d been hard for her to heed. It was just as hard for me now.

We didn’t say anything else for a long while.

 

# # #


End file.
